Sunday, 4 December 2011

Notes on Wolfgang Tillmans -Freischwimmer 155, 2010

Task: Find an artefact/peice of art that is part of the BAS7 show, describe it, think about what its trying to say, What is the artist trying to comunicate? How is it displayed?

Exploring the way photography is made & represented

Large photographic print

Made by exposing photographic paper to points of light to create texture and colour

My first thoughts when looking at it:

movement

use of colour

blur/in focus

lines draw eyes across the page

flowing

water

slow shutterspeed

light

organic

Description of peice:

green background

black lines

large peice that almost covers a wall

not on a canvas

on paper clipped to the wall

made from two seperate peices of paper

black lines like hair or wires

because its on paper the paper ripples and curves

held to the wall with 13 pins/clips

lines travel left to right across the page

there are blured patches but they dont show depth of feild, they look Photoshopped, yet there is still depth created in the peice through density of line

Using light to create marks

graph

high saturation of green

heartbeat line

tracking people, walk to create a line

negative

there are lights subtly illuminating the peice

eyes are drawn to were the lines are thickest

green is brighter at edges

White specks on paper-lower quality than it could be

Questions that I thought of when looking at the peice:

How are the lines black?

Why was the peice not sectioned off?

Why didnt the people working in that particular gallery ask me not to touch the work even when I was so close I was almost touching it? even though in other BAS7 gallerys, they tell you not to touch the work when you are much further away.

Is it not sectioned of to make it flow more with his other peice of artwork?

White border, what is the relevance of this?

How was the green produced?

Did he use a filter to create the blur or was it produced through post production or even chance?

Was there any post production?

Why did he use those colours?

Why did he use lines in this peice?

What is the perpose of the scale of the print?

My thoughts on the peice and the reasons behind it:

It explores how we see photography as a medium and what is a photograph and what isnt. It uses key elements of photographic practise but the end result doesnt look like a steriotypical photograph. It makes the veiwer question what photography really is and what makes something a photograph. It was printed on to such a large scale because when something is large it gives a bigger impact. Also when something is large and displayed in a dominant way (almost covering an entire wall) it is seen as a better peice of artwork because it wouldnt have the same impact of it was a smaller peice of work. It doesnt seem as much of a fixed peice because it is pinned to the wall rather than being on a canvas and it is made of two peices of paper rather than one. The possitioning of the peice on the far wall on the right means that it is very dominant, it is set apart from anything else on the wall and takes up most of one wall. The clips, attached to nails that hold the peice on the wall could easily be remove. It feels very fragile and temporary for such a large scale peice of arwork so perhaps it is looking at how although a photograph captures a moment, time isnt fixed and a moment cannot be repeated. The nails and clips also mean that the peice is not flat on the wall but that there is a gap which creates shadows. This adds to the feeling of fragility. Learning the meaning of Freischwimmer only depthened my perception of the peice being very temporary and fragile.

The information gained from the guide person in the BAS7 t-shirt:

Made with fiber optic light

blur produced when light is put onto and taken off paper

in his work he moves the paper

lack of barrier isnt relevant

no printer available to print it off on one sheet so it is printed onto two peices of paper